Biology Dept. News

Student News:

Christopher Wisniewski (B.S. in Biology with Certification candidate) received the
Spring 2015 Student Government Association Undergraduate Research Fund to support
his Independent Study and Research on White-nose syndrome (WNS). WNS is a highly infectious fungal disease that is killing millions of bats in the
U.S. The spread and mortality is so great that it is predicted that once common species
will become extinct from our region. Chris will examine WNS from a variety of perspectives
in hopes to culminate data and create innovative conservation strategies and thus
help direct habitat/species management practices. This project is supervised by Dr.
Miranda Dunbar.

SCSU Biotech Club members are now in the process of forming an iGEM team to compete at MIT for fall 2015. iGEM is the "International Genetically Engineered Machine" competition where interdisciplinary (usually Math, Physics, Biology, Computer Science, Chemistry) student teams perform a Synthetic Biology project over the summer to create or redesign genetic 'circuits' in living cells
that allow the cells to perform a useful function for humans. If you are interested
in joining the team, please contact Dr. Edgington, or the Club President by email, or come to their meeting. The team needs to begin fund-raising soon in
order to cover the entry fee.

Congratulations to undergraduate biology students Jasper Larioza, and Gabriel Hamal,
who were both accepted to the Summer Medical and Dental Enrichment Program (SMDEP)
at Yale University!

Congratulations to one of our Undergraduates, Kirsten Famiglietti, who was awarded
an American Society of Plant Biologist Summer Undergraduate ResearchFellowship to do research in the Silady lab. She will be doing an enhancer/suppressor screen
of the gravitropism defective2 mutant in Arabidopsis. The award will provide her with a stipend, money for supplies, one year membership
in ASPB, and travel money to present her research at the 2015 ASPB annual conference.
She was 1 of only 12 recipients in the country, and 1 of 5 from a 'predominantly undergraduate
institution'.

Spring 2015 Club meeting times:

Faculty News:

The Biology department has a NEW International summer course (BIO327 Field Natural History in Belize, 3 credits, 2015) available for student registration for ecological studies with Dr. Dunbar in Belize. The course is at the Lamanai Outpost Lodge in northwestern Belize in the Orange Walk District, which is nestled in the jungle
on the bank of New River and adjacent to the Lamanai Maya Archeological Reserve.
Contact Dr. Dunbar for additional details and questions.

Welcome NEW BIOLOGY FACULTY members:

The department welcomes two new faculty members, Dr. Meghan Barboza and Dr. Michael Fisher! See the Faculty/Staff webpage for more details.Dr. Barboza's research interests include chemical signaling in aquatic mammals and microanatomic
comparisons of chemoreceptive organs. Her overarching research question is 'How do
aquatic mammals locate potential mates?' Her PhD research focused on the anatomic
description of structures related to taste and smell in the Florida manatee as well
as potential expressive organs such as anal glands. In addition Dr. Barboza completed
behavioral research to determine whether male manatees can detect changes in female
manatee urine from different reproductive states. Currently she is completing histologic
examination of manatee facial and intraoral structures and is beginning to collect
samples from other marine mammals including seals and cetaceans.

Dr. Fisher has broad training in Microbiology. His graduate thesis focused on the molecular
mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis with an emphasis on respiratory infections. During
his first postdoctoral fellowship he studied genetic variation in M. tuberculosis. Over the past several years he has changed research focus from bacterial pathogenesis
to genetic regulation in cyanobacteria. The goal of his research is to genetically
engineer strains of cyanobacteria for industrial application including bioproduct
development and bioremediation. Dr. Fisher's strong belief that research and teaching
are complimentary influences his pedagogy. Examples from research are often used in
his courses and students are encouraged to critique this new information and infer
broader implications of scientific research.

Dr. Roberts:

Dr. Roberts was recently awarded an NSF grant to aid in outfitting her lab with modern molecular biology equipment. She has also
had a research manuscript with her postdoctoral PI, Steven Lindow, accepted for publication
in the ISME journal. ISME journal is the premier journal in Dr. Roberts' field of microbial ecology with
an impact factor of 8.951! A link will be posted when the paper is available online.
The paper is titled: "Loline alkaloid production by fungal endophytes of Fescue species
select for particular epiphytic bacterial microflora", Elizabeth Roberts PhD and Steven
Lindow PhD. Finally, the Department congratulates Dr. Roberts for being awarded only
one of two University-wide SCSU "Junior Faculty Fellowships" for the Spring of 2014,
in which she will be able to spend the majority of her time advancing her productive
research agenda due to a reduced teaching schedule. Dr. Roberts will be working on
establishing a bioremediation system to remove Atrazine from soil using bacteria found
on the leaves and roots of grasses.

Dr. Crawford: Dr. Crawford has recently gained media attention for her research on Christmas
fern extracts that have demonstrated anti-cancer properties in pre-clinical testing
in tissue culture. Click here for the full article from SCSU News.